How to hide videos on iPhone
Videos hide exactly like photos. They also take far more room wherever they end up.
In short
Open the video in the Photos app, tap the More button, then tap Hide. It moves to the Hidden album under Utilities, locked with Face ID, Touch ID or your passcode, and you can hide the album itself in Settings › Apps › Photos with Show Hidden Album. A hidden video still syncs with iCloud Photos, still uses storage, and opens with your iPhone passcode.
Key takeaways
- More › Hide moves a video to the locked Hidden album.
- Hidden videos still sync and count against iCloud storage.
- Deleted videos wait 30 days in Recently Deleted.
Hide a video
- Open the Photos app and open the video.
- Tap the More button, then tap Hide, and confirm.
- To hide several, tap Select in your library or an album, choose the videos, then tap More › Hide.
Hidden videos leave the library, other albums and the Photos widget, and appear only in the Hidden album under Utilities. To remove that album from view, go to Settings › Apps › Photos (Settings › Photos before iOS 18) and turn off Show Hidden Album.
What hiding doesn’t change
- The video is still in your library and, with iCloud Photos, hidden — not removed — on your other devices.
- The Hidden album opens with your iPhone passcode, so anyone who knows it can play the video.
- On iCloud.com, Apple’s steps to view hidden items are simply to select Hidden, then Show Hidden Photos, once signed in.
- In an iCloud Shared Photo Library, hiding a video moves it to the Hidden album for every participant.
Videos and storage
iCloud Photos stores videos at full resolution, including 4K, slo-mo and time-lapse, and they use both your iCloud storage and your iPhone’s storage. With Optimize Storage turned on, the iPhone keeps space-saving versions and downloads originals when you need them, while iCloud keeps the full-size file.
Deleting a video does not free anything at once: it moves to Recently Deleted, where it stays for 30 days on every device using the same iCloud Photos library. Delete it there to remove it for good.
Two more things to check
Videos you receive
Apple’s current guide notes that photos and videos shared with you in Messages are saved to your photo library automatically. To stop that, go to Settings › Apps › Messages › Shared with You and turn off Photos. Otherwise a video you never chose to keep can end up synced everywhere.
Location in videos
Videos recorded with the Camera app carry location just like photos. Set Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services › Camera to Never if you don’t want it recorded.
Moving videos to a vault
In Latent, videos are stored encrypted and play straight from encrypted storage, resuming where you stopped. Plan for their size: a video in a vault takes room on your iPhone and, once backed up, in your own iCloud. After importing, delete the originals from Photos and empty Recently Deleted so the vault holds the only copy.